NBC suspends Billy Bush over crude Trump exchange

Associated Press

Published 9:02 pm, Sunday, October 9, 2016

NEW YORK — NBC suspended “Today” show personality Billy Bush indefinitely Sunday after he was caught on a videotape from 2005 in a crude conversation about women with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

“Today” Executive Producer Noah Oppenheim said in a memo Sunday that “there is simply no excuse for Billy’s language and behavior on that tape.” Bush, who hosts the third hour of the “Today” show, has been suspended “pending further review of the matter,” Oppenheim said.

NBC announced its decision two days after the videotape from the “Access Hollywood” archives surfaced. Bush was a host for that show in 2005, and he was taped in a hot-mike discussion with Trump when the future presidential nominee was on a Hollywood set to make an appearance on a soap opera.

On the tape, Trump brags about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women who were not his wife. Bush joins in, laughing at some of Trump’s comments and later encouraging an actress to hug Trump.

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Bush, 44, has been brutalized on his Facebook page since the tape surfaced. Hundreds of hostile comments were attached to Bush’s last posting Friday. “You are sickening!” one woman wrote, in a comment that almost 5,000 had “liked” through Sunday afternoon.

Angering women viewers of a show as important to NBC’s bottom line as “Today” is no small matter. Women make up the majority of “Today” viewers, particularly in the last two hours.

Bush issued a statement Friday apologizing for his actions. He is the nephew of former President George H.W. Bush.